Tamar Braxton is Done With Reality TV ‘Forever and Ever’
Tamar Braxton has endeared audiences for years with her unique Tamar-isms and often over-the-top persona. But the Grammy-nominated singer has also admitted that despite her often great exterior, she was struggling deep down. This all came to a head when Braxton attempted suicide in July of 2020.
Tamar Braxton has had a difficult year
Braxton started out 2020 as busy as ever. She was a co-host on the new VH1 show To Catch a Beautician, and she’s set to appear alongside Vivica A. Fox and felon-turned-model Jeremy Meeks in the new movie True to the Game 2: Gena’s Story.
But underneath it all, Braxton said she knew she wasn’t doing well. In July of 2020, news broke that Braxton was found unconscious in a Los Angeles hotel room and was rushed to the hospital in an apparent suicide attempt.
Braxton gave her first interview after these public struggles with Tamron Hall in October. Braxton was Hall’s first in-studio guest after the breakout of the COVID-19 pandemic because Hall felt it was a serious matter that could only be discussed face to face.
“I was lying about how amazing I was doing. And I allowed the makeup and the hair to cover up everything that I was feeling,” Braxton said honestly. “Our household became very hard, and it was hard because I wasn’t happy [doing Braxton Family Values], and I hadn’t been happy for years.”
Reality TV became Tamar Braxton’s breaking point
When Braxton and her sisters first started doing Braxton Family Values, she was excited to showcase her family and the love they share. But the on-screen drama soon began to spill off-screen. “This is not the show that I created,” Braxton said remorsefully. “I didn’t want to be an example of a family who fights and argues and always has turmoil.”
“I created Braxton Family Values because I wanted to be an example — a part of the Black community with five Black amazing sisters with all different walks of life who can inspire and help and people can learn from our experiences along the way,” she continued. “We weren’t teaching anything besides being devilish.”
“It was about feeling like I could never be myself, and being misunderstood, and having the stigma of the angry Black woman all the time. And that’s not who I am,” she added. “That’s not what I wanted to portray.”
Things reached a fever pitch behind the scenes with self-help guru Iyanla Vanzant came on Braxton Family Values to help them sort through their issues. But the confrontation quickly turned ugly after Vanzant revealed something deeply personal.
“I was excited about it, but that excitement came to an end when she decided to tell everyone that I was domestically sexually abused from the ages of 6 to 16, and I’d never told anyone that,” Braxton said. For her, this incident was the beginning of the end, and WE TV continued to ignore her issues even after sending them a letter saying she was going to take her own life.
Tamar Braxton is moving on from reality TV
Braxton lambasted the insensitivity of network executives as she was dealing with personal struggles and even told them what she was feeling. She left Braxton Family Values, but she was coerced into creating her own docuseries Get Ya Life! because of her contract with the network.
“I love television. And I wanted to do other positive television,” Braxton said of the experience. “I just didn’t want to be that person anymore. It was killing me, literally.”
Get Ya Life! was filmed before her attempted suicide in the summer, and its release was postponed after she was hospitalized. Braxton said she’s become disillusioned with much of the business of television because of these experiences.
“Are you done with reality TV for a while?” Hall asked Braxton.
“Not for a while; forever and ever, amen?” Braxton laughed. “I feel like that’s the best thing for me. I’m doing other things with television which I’m really excited about, but I don’t feel like I need to give a depiction of my life and what’s happening and a play-by-play and who I’m dating and how my kid is doing.”
If you or someone you know needs help, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255). There is also a crisis text line. For crisis support in Spanish, call 1-888-628-9454.
